Dr Seth Gustafson

Academic position: Lecturer

Department: Geography

Biography:

Since 2016, I have been a Lecturer in Human Geography in the Department of Geography at University College London. There, I convene the MSc in Environment, Politics, and Society, and I teach and research generally on topics of urban environmental politics, problems, and histories. Prior to joining UCL, I was a post-doctoral research associate at the Sustainability Research Centre of the University of Bremen (Germany) with INTERCOAST, an interdisciplinary coastal research post-graduate training programme split between Germany and New Zealand. I finished my PhD in Geography in 2014 at the University of Georgia (USA), which examined how urbanisation is changing environmental politics in an historically rural area of Appalachia. I have also completed an MA in Geography at Georgia and I studied history and philosophy as an undergraduate.

Research Projects:

Lately, I have been writing on two new topics related to the urban aspects of the anthropocene, the first of which considers the more-than-human urban histories and geographies of eels in London. Since the mid-20^th century, the population European Eel (Anguilla anguilla) has precipitously declined and is now listed as critically endangered. This project aims to trace the relationship between London and the eel, charting how the city has fostered colonialist, extractive, conservationist, and other anthropocenic relations with the eel.

The second project focuses on children’s geographies of urban air pollution. This project involves 3^rd year undergraduates at UCL in a community geography/citizen science-inspired effort to collect, map, and communicate data of air pollution in children’s spaces in various London neighbourhoods.

Teaching:

GEOG 0007 Human Ecology (UG, Term 1)

GEOG 0062 Urban Political Ecology (UG, Term 1)

GEOG 0073 Environmental Knowledges (PG, Term 1)